


should have left you (the moment I saw that stupid smile)

by Loloquacious



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adopted Rey (Star Wars), Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, But so does Rey, Complicated Relationships, F/M, First Time, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Not Related, Not a dark fic, Older Man/Younger Woman, Pseudo-Incest, Size Difference, Size Kink, Slow Burn, Slow-ish burn, and complicated, but I still think it counts as, just messy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-07-31 08:56:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20112493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loloquacious/pseuds/Loloquacious
Summary: She isn’t really paying attention, not until she hears a scrape of a noise, a boot scuff, and her eyes catch the glint of the sun off a truck, the flick-click-snick of a lighter, a plume of smoke—And a man, leaning against a dirty black pick-up truck. Heavy boots, worn jeans, old white tee sticking to shiny, tanned skin.Rey stops, her shiny-black shoes scraping the inlaid stone of the driveway.The man inhales, a flaring-red tip, exhales, a cloud of white smoke. “You must be Jaina,” he says, inhaling again, his voice tighter. “Right?”His sunglasses glint in the sunlight, he tilts his head a little, looking at her.“Rey,” she says automatically and then frowns because she doesn’t even know who this guy is—He huffs, low and rough. “So you’re the new little Solo, huh?”(In which, Rey is adopted, Kylo is estranged and nothing good is ever easy.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dipping my toes into the fandom the first time and seeing if there's any interest in this idea that would not leave me alone till I put it to paper. Hopefully there's a few people into the idea and I'll keep posting!
> 
> Summary: Rey was adopted by the Solo's after Kylo was already estranged from his parents, this is the first real time they've met. There's a bit of plot in regards to family dynamics and his estrangement and Rey's past, but mostly this is just about them and some smut :) hopefully y'all are down for that.
> 
> Warnings: underage, Rey's sixteen and Kylo's like, thirty. Everything is consensual, but obviously dub-con if you're just basing it on age. Might be some talk of past abuse, but I don't think it'll be a major thing.

* * *

One

* * *

A teacher passes her by on the front steps, books and papers shoved under her arm, her cardigan off, just like Rey’s uniform jacket had left her shoulders thirty minutes ago.

When the bell rang.

Thirty minutes ago.

“Rey?” Ms. Kanata starts, frowning, looking down at her with her thick glasses, shifting her stack of books on her hip, purse dangling from one arm. The sun bears down, she squints, Rey squints back because she’s always losing her sunglasses. “Where’s your sister?”

Rey shrugs, picking at the hem of her knee highs, the hem of her skirt scratching between her thighs, sticky with sweat. “She’s coming, probably just running late from class or something. She’ll be here soon.”

Miss Kanata tilts her head, her mouth opening, then shutting. “Want me to wait with you?”

Rey shakes her head, lifting her phone. “I’m okay, don’t worry.”

She hesitates another moment, but nods. “Well… perhaps, but you should wait inside, hm? It’s at least a little cooler.”

She nods, pushing to her feet, brushing off her skirt and the back of her eyes. “Sure thing, Ms. Kanata, I’ll see you on Monday?”

The teacher nods, waggling her fingers in a goodbye, one last look back before she goes.

Rey turns to head up the steps, stepping into the cool school and blinking to adjust to fluorescent lighting after the brightness of the afternoon sun as she types out another message to Jaina.

An hour later, back in the hot sun, Rey hikes her backpack higher on her shoulders and heads for home. It's hot out, scorching, even, but that’s what California is, that’s what summer is, and she’s walked home alone more than once when Jaina or Jacen hadn’t shown up.

She’s sweaty by the time she reaches their community street, flushed and sticky by the time she makes it up the hill and through the gates of their home.

She isn’t really paying attention, not until she hears a scrape of a noise, a boot scuff, and her eyes catch the glint of the sun off of a truck, the flick-click-snick of a lighter, a plume of smoke—

And a man, leaning against a dirty black pick-up truck. Heavy boots, worn jeans, old white tee sticking to shiny, tanned skin.

Rey stops, her shiny-black shoes scraping the inlaid stone of the driveway.

The man inhales, a flaring-red tip, exhales, a cloud of white smoke.

“You must be Jaina,” he says, inhaling again, his voice tighter. “Right?”

Exhale. His sunglasses glint in the sunlight, he tilts his head a little, looking at her.

“Rey,” she says automatically and then frowns because she doesn’t even know who this guy is—

He huffs, low and rough. “So you’re the new little Solo, huh?”

“Sorry, I don’t—”

“Nah, guess you wouldn’t, huh? Don’t think you were here last time I was. How old are you now?”

“Sixteen.”

“No shit,” he says in a cloud of white. “Been longer than I thought.” He drops the cigarette, crushing it beneath his boot as he straightens and drags a hand through his dark hair, the muscles in his arms flexing, tanned and shiny beneath the sun.

Rey fidgets, waiting for more. For a name, anything, wonders if he’s a friend of Han’s—

“I’m Kylo,” he says, watching her. The name sits between them and it sticks in her mind like she should know it but—

He snorts, crossing his arms and leaning back against the truck. “Ben.”

_Oh,_ she thinks, something curdling in her stomach because he’s— he’s her _something_… but she can’t…

Remembers a photo tucked into one of Leia’s jewelry boxes, a boy with a flop of dark hair and a toothy grin—

Rey blinks and sees that same boy in her mind, through a crack in the living room door, Han watching a boy on the tv run and laugh through a spray of water, being aimed at him through a hose.

He shrugs, Rey watches the broad shift of his shoulder beneath the white of his tee. “It’s been a while, don’t worry about it. Didn’t expect you to know me, I was already gone by the time you got here.”

Rey blinks. “Why are you out here?”

“I just got here. No one’s home.”

Rey shifts when the silence stretches, he lifts a dark brow, just visible beneath the edge of his sunglasses.

“You got a key?”

“Uh, I— Jaina was—” she shifts again, somehow, even though there are metres between them, even though she can’t feel his eyes, she swears he’s watching her. “She’s running late, she’s got the keys.”

Kylo_, Ben,_ she thinks, tilts his head at her, something sitting in the corner of his mouth, crooked curling up. “So, what were you going to do?”

Rey grips her backpack straps, fidgeting. Running her sweaty palms over them and wondering what was going on in her belly. “The pool,” she starts hesitates. “I usually just wait there.”

Kylo’s mouth tilts a little more and he straightens off the truck. “Alright, as long as there’s shade.”

Rey nods, fidgeting with her straps again before she bites her lip and moves forward, passing by her… her brother? by a few feet, but close enough to feel him trailing behind her.

“Jaina and Jacen are, what, seventeen?”

“Nineteen.”

“Shit,” he says behind her, his shadow cresting her shoulder. “_Nineteen_.”

Rey can’t help but wonder why he’s back, ten years is a long time to stay gone, but she knew there was something bad between him and Han, that her parents had rarely mentioned him. Remembers hushed, quiet phone calls, Leia in the kitchen asking if he was coming down for holidays he never showed up for. The harsh-tipped sound of her voice, telling him to _come home. That’s enough, Ben._

He never did though.

Not that Rey can remember.

It’s cooler in the backyard, with the salty wind coming off the ocean and the shade thrown by palm trees. At least until they get closer to the pool and the heat of the stones feel like a little grill crawling up her legs.

She chews her cheek, fighting the urge to look back at him, settling for dropping her bag on one of the lounge chairs and dropping into it. She’s saved from saying anything as Kylo wanders a little closer to the pool, looking around the yard, at Han’s workshop, before heading back to the pool chairs as she works at one of the buckles on her shoes, watching him beneath her lashes.

“Forgot what this place was like,” he mutters, slumping into one of the chairs beside her, sinking into the shade with a sigh and propping one heavy booted foot up onto the clean white lounge chair.

Rey glances at him, her shoe plopping onto the stone as she reaches for the other one. “What?”

He tilts his back lazily, that crooked tilt to his mouth as he drags a hand through his hair, his forehead a little shiny along his temples, making his hair stick up, before settling rumpled and messy. “Fuckin’ hot.”

Rey’s other shoe hits the stone, and she lifts one of her legs up on the chair edge, peeling off her socks and enjoying that first hit of salty, ocean breeze.

“They got you in Bayonard, huh?”

Rey looks up at him, one arm curved behind his head, propped up to look at her; his arm thick with muscle, white shirt stretched around his bicep. It does something funny to her stomach, makes her fumble her other sock, her foot slipping off the chair.

When she doesn’t say anything, he laughs a little. “I know those uniforms. Hated them. Think I burnt mine.”

Rey smiles, not sure if she should at first, but it breaks out anyway, slips into a little laugh at the tilt of his mouth, the lazy, easy way he says it.

She looks to the pool, wiggling her toes on the hot stone. “I’m gonna put my feet in,” she looks to his boots, wondering if he’s not hot, jeans and socks and boots in this weather. “If you want—”

“Is the water cold?”

Rey nods, usually it’s a bit cold, enough to make her skin prickle, to make her gasp, to make it feel good to sink into it after the heat of sitting in class all day or the burn of the sun on her skin on the weekends.

Not wanting to sit and stare at him, Rey stands, her feet burning on stone that’s been roasting beneath the sun all day until she’s stepping down the first step inside the pool, feeling the rush of cool water chasing goosebumps up her legs. She’d like to sit in the water, has done it before, waiting on extra-hot days, but Leia doesn’t like her getting chlorine on her school uniform.

She hears the shift of fabric behind her, turning just enough to watch Kylo from the corner of her eye; tugging at his laces, yanking off his heavy boots and peeling off his socks before stuffing them into them. He stands, walking closer to her, eyes still shaded by sunglasses.

“Leia gonna get mad if I get my dirty clothes in her pool?”

Rey squints up at him. He’s really tall, she thinks. Really tall. “Mom? I don’t— I mean, no. It’s just water?”

He huffs something like a laugh, bending down to roll his pants over thick calves. Dark hair, lighter skin, he didn’t come from somewhere like here, she thinks. No one has pale anything here.

Kylo sinks down on the ledge, pushing his feet into the water, his legs stretching out, the hem of his rolled jeans turning darker as water soaks in.

“Aren’t you going to sit?” he asks, peering up at her.

Rey shrugs, graceless, awkward. “The stone’s hot,” she mumbles lamely, thinking about the back of her thighs, the rise of her skirt, her skin on the hot stones.

Kylo’s head lowers, just enough that Rey flushes because she knows he’s looking at the back of her thighs.

_Beanpoles_, Jacen says. _Twig-legs._

But Kylo’s pulling off his shirt, one swift, muscle-shifting tug and spreads his shirt over her where Rey would plop her butt down if the stones weren’t likely to burn her thighs.

_Uh,_ she thinks, but when he looks back up at her again, a dark brow raised just beyond the edge of his sunglasses, and… Rey sits.

Plops down and tries not to think about anything but the cool water on her feet and ankles.

It goes quiet, just the ocean and wind, that shift of palm leaves above their heads. Rey steals glances at him, wiggling her toes beneath the water, enjoying the cool prickle of goosebumps spreading further up her thighs and wishing, just a little, he wasn’t here so she could slip in deeper. Maybe just peel off her uniform and dive in in her underwear.

_Should start carrying a swimsuit,_ she thinks.

“So, how’s it been here?” he asks and then makes a noise in his throat. “That was a stupid fucking question, don’t answer that.”

Rey chews her cheek, pulling up her knees to hug them, liking the cold of her skin on her arms. She turns her head to face him then he sighs, leaning back on one arm to face her.

_He’s big,_ she thinks, pressing her cheeks onto her cold knee when she feels her cheeks warm, hoping he can’t see it for the flush that was already there from her walk home. But he is, she can’t help but notice, reminds her a little of the water polo, surfer, lacrosse guys her sister is always after but—

But bigger. _Thicker._

All muscle and dark hair, a thin line of it that makes her stomach all tight, right above the edge of his jeans, in the tense, rocky plain of his stomach.

She turns her face into her knees, breathing in her own air, looking at the pool water lapping turquoise, sending glowing, shifting sunlight reflections over her skin.

She tries to focus on his words, on the reality, she thinks, of why he’s here after… after so many years—

After all those phone calls and missed holidays.

“It’s been a while,” she mumbles. “It’s alright.”

Kylo doesn’t say anything to that, but she can hear him sigh.

She breathes out, turning her cheek to look at him, he’s not looking at her, his jaw tense, looking out over the water, but he comes back on his own, or maybe he feels her watching, she isn’t sure.

“You missed the funeral, you know. It was two months ago.”

His jaw tenses, his voice a little rougher when it comes out. “I know.”

“You should’ve come back sooner.”

“Probably.”

“So why didn’t you?”

Kylo sighs, his mouth crooking up but it isn’t as nice as the last crooked-up smile he gave her. “Hard to come back to a place you’re not wanted.”

“Mom wants you here. Dad did, too.”

“Han did just fine without me.”

“He didn’t. He’s _dead_.”

“Rey—” he sighs, and Rey isn’t sure what’s wrong with her, why she’s talking to him at all, she doesn’t even _know_ him, not really, not outside a name on Leia’s tongue, a contact in her phone, a_ picture_… “Having me here wouldn’t have changed what happened.”

Rey opens her mouth, but—

There’s a squeal of tires, a slam of a car door and her name, bouncing over the house and into the backyard. “Rey!”

Rey jolts, but Kylo only leans back a little more, twisting to look over his shoulder. “Jaina?”

“Yeah,” Rey sighs, long and slow, preparing for her sister’s habitually defensive anger at having forgotten her.

But when Jaina finally crests the corner of the house, she stops, caught by the sight of the man just like Rey was.

There’s some little thought at the back of her mind, wondering what he sees, what he saw— just like she did. Wondering why he thought she was Jaina. If he really was so out of touch with them that he thought she was still that starving, scrawny kid Han brought home; like time didn’t pass, people didn’t change or _die—_

Wonders what he thinks when he sees Jaina now, nineteen on the edge of twenty, little jean skirt and wedge heels, a halter top that’s less a shirt than a bikini top. Rey thinks it might be, wonders if she gets closer if she’s going to smell like tanning lotion and coconut alcohol. All salt and sand-crusted from the beach with whatever boy she’s seeing now. From wherever she was when she should have been picking Rey up.

“Who the hell are you?” she spits, marching forward again, her eyes darting over Kylo until she gets closer and Rey can practically see her swallow, see the look in her eyes—

She’s seen that look on Jaina’s face more times than she can count. _Chris, Sam, Riley, Jake—_

Kylo glances back at Rey, that crooked smile on his mouth just for a second before he stands and Rey’s watching the way Jaina looks at him, looks up at him, because Kylo stands but he keeps _going, _so tall and broad and thick and—

Rey swallows, pushing her legs deeper in cold water.

“Holy _shit_—” Jaina says and then laughs. “_Ben!_”

“Hey, Jaina—” he’s saying and stepping forward for a hug that Rey didn’t get, and she wonders why that bothers her; why it matters that Jaina throws herself up and at him, letting him catch her around the middle before pulling her in for a hug.

“It’s been fucking forever!”

He chuckles, some low rumbling sound, and Rey looks away, back at the water lapping at her legs. She shouldn’t be surprised Jaina remembers him, Rey didn’t even get here until Ben Solo was a name only mentioned in hushed tones or behind closed doors… Rey doesn’t _know_ Ben Solo.

But then Jaina’s voice comes again, as Kylo’s setting her down and she’s reaching out to tug Rey’s ponytail. “I was coming for you, where were you?”

“You were an hour late,” Rey huffs, swatting her hand away and jerking out of the tug on her hair. “School ends at _three_.”

“I said I’d be there, you aren’t supposed to walk home—”

“I got home fine,” Rey bites out, pushing up from the water. “Whatever, can you just let us in the house now, you have _my_ keys because you forgot _yours_.”

For a second, Jaina looks sorry, but it’s only a flash before she’s huffing, pulling a key ring from her back pocket and tossing them at Rey. “There you go, you baby.”

“I’m not a _baby—_”

“Yeah, you are—”

“Hey,” Kylo interrupts. “Maybe we should all head inside, huh. Heat’s a bitch.”

“So is she,” Rey spits and turns on her heel. “She _forgot_ me—”

_“_Yeah,_” _Jaina sneers. “‘Cause you’re _forgettable_—“

“That’s enough,” Kylo says, harsh and quiet, his hand locking on Jaina’s upper arm as she steps forward, her mouth twisted, eyes hard and dark on Rey’s. “_Enough_, Jaina.”

But Rey’s already turning on her heel, storming up to the glass doors to unlock them and let herself in, disabling the alarm with angry finger jabs and heading up to her room.

She catches only the edges of Kylo’s voice as she goes.

_What the hell was that about?_

Jaina finds her hours later, when Rey’s still tucked away in her room, wrapped up in an oversized hoodie and sleep shorts and hugging her pillow.

She doesn’t bother knocking, but when have they ever?

“I didn’t mean what I said,” she says, leaning in from the doorway. “My phone died and I— I just spaced, it wasn’t you, I just—”

It goes quiet and Rey can practically hear Jaina’s eyes rolling. “You’re not like, forgettable, okay, I was being a bitch, that’s all. It was my fault. Preston was at the beach and I just— spaced. I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” she mumbles. “Sorry for calling you a bitch.”

_Not really, _she thinks.

“I deserved it.” It goes quiet, but Rey knows Jaina’s still there. “Jace is still out, but Kylo made dinner, like nachos or some shit Mom would never let us eat—”

Rey sits up, already halfway off the bed, ignoring Jaina’s laugh.

His eyes are— are _brown_ she thinks, no, _hazel—_

Something between the two, like they were mashed up on a paint tray and half mixed together, like those paintings kids do, a marble rolling through colours…

_Don’t be stupid,_ she tells herself, looking away from him at the stove as she steps up next to him. He’s changed his clothes, still an old pair of jeans, but the shirt is black with a v-neck, his hair damp, black and thick and still dripping.

“Hey,” he says with that crooked smile, a little wrinkle in the corner of his eye. “Jaina said I should make extra because you eat enough for two—”

“No, I said she eats like a _cow,_” she interrupts, sliding into the kitchen, a tank-top pulled on over the bikini top she had on.

Rey scowls, but Kylo tugs on the drawn-up hood, tugging it down, Rey runs a hand through her hair, knowing it must be a mess. She tries not to pay attention to how tall he seems, standing next to her when she’s in bare feet.

“I run track,” she huffs, glaring at Jaina while she tells herself she shouldn’t care. She’s all angles and bones anyway, it’s not like it ever matters what she eats.

“Yeah?” he asks. “Maybe we should have a competition to see who can eat more? I can eat for three.”

“No _way_. You’re like Abercrombie fit.” Jaina laughs, propping herself on the other side of the island as Kylo dumps the cheese-baked nachos onto a big tray, the salsa and sour cream still in the _containers_, waiting for them to dip into.

Leia would have a _fit,_ she thinks, and smiles, her nose scrunching a little as she watches Kylo take one cheese-dripping nacho and dunk it into salsa and then sour cream.

Kylo speaks around a full cheek, “Wanna bet?”

They end up in the living room, watching some action movie Kylo hasn’t seen and Jaina says was _pretty cool_ when she saw it at the movies a few months ago.

Kylo lazes on one half of the couch while Jaina spreads out in the two-seater next to it, legs folded over the armrest while she texts and only half watches the movie.

Rey lies belly-down on the floor, hugging a throw-pillow and trying not to glance back at Kylo too often.

She finds it hard to believe he’s here, kind of feels like she’s making him up. He doesn’t fit the house, the proper, perfectly clean lines and decorations. Seems too large, too normal, too…big, she thinks, and doesn’t really want to examine the little bubble of something in her stomach at the thought of him behind her.

She shifts, pushing her face into the pillow and wondering if maybe she ate too much.

* * *

  


He sees the lights through the windows first, the slow curve of headlights, the quiet dark settling heavier until the creak of the wood door breaks it open again.

He’s annoyed, can feel it inside himself, an itch for a smoke, for a fight, for a fuck, anything other than the conversation he knows is coming.

He hates the reaction, even as it spreads inside him.

Leia’s heels sound hollow on the wood floor; Kylo flicks his lighter, a tick of a nervous movement that irritates him more, hides it by pulling out a cigarette, lighting it up and pulling in the burnt, heavy taste of that first, filling inhale.

Leia frowns.

_“Mom,”_ he drawls, blowing out the word in a puff of white smoke.

“Probably not the best place for a smoke, Ben.”

He grits his teeth, letting the cigarette burn in his fingers. Her eyes flick to it, back up to his face, her disapproval obvious and grating.

He shrugs.

The smell of the workshop is nothing more and nothing less than moments of his childhood, all the best and the worst of them. A double-sided blade that cuts no matter how he holds it.

Wood, oil, metal… his father is in every plank, every nail, every tool.

Kylo wonders if he could still find Han’s fingerprints, left behind like ghosts haunting woodgrains and hammers and every last wall Han built himself.

Wonders if he could find his own, smaller, younger; a little phantom boy that died long before his father did.

In name anyway.

“It’s Kylo,” he says, pulling in another drag, holding it in his lungs, watching Leia through it.

Leia says nothing, watching him back.

He isn’t sure if he’s irritated, angry, annoyed, all of it mashed together inside of him; the same tangle of feelings any time he thinks about coming home, anytime his mother’s name appears on his phone screen, glowing bright, a vibration that presses into his thigh, over and over until it fades like her name does on the screen. Goes black and still as the call ends and Kylo can forget about it and her and this life, just for a little while longer.

“You missed the funeral.”

“You’re not the first one to tell me that.”

Her head tilts, just a little.

“Rey,” he offers to the silent question.

Leia’s lips twitch. “She’s got a bit of a lip on her, reminds me of you, sometimes, actually.”

Kylo frowns. “She his?”

Leia’s smile falls, she looks away, pulling in a breath and letting it out. “No, she isn’t. That wasn’t a lie.”

Kylo snorts. “That’d be a first.”

Leia frowns. “One moment in thirty years, Ben—”

“Kylo.”

“_Ben_.”

He snorts, looking up at the ceiling, watching the smoke from his cigarette trail and snake towards the wood beams. “So, she’s not his then, just some stray you brought home?”

“She’s our— _our_ daughter, Ben, not a stray. Which you’d know about if you ever picked up the phone.”

He shrugs, lifting the cigarette to his mouth and pulling in another breath. “Uh-huh.”

Leia’s eyes narrow, her mouth pursing before she sighs and closes her eyes. “I don’t want to argue with you, Benjamin. I’m tired, I’ve been waiting for you to come home for _years_ and tonight, for one moment, I’m going to pretend you came home because you wanted to, not because of guilt, but because it’s where you belong.”

_Guilt,_ he thinks, feels it curdle in his stomach, feels anger bubbling beneath it, wants to fling the word back at her and tell her he’s not _guilty about a goddamn thing—_

But Leia’s stepping forward, and before he can really think what she’s doing, her arms are around his middle and she’s pressing her face just beneath his neck, breathing him in, arms tightening, heart beating—

It’s tight and brief and over in less than a moment, less time than it takes for him to tense up, for him to adjust, for him to think about the familiar smell of her perfume and the coil of her bun, twisted low at the nape of her neck.

Leia steps away and her heels leave a hollow, fading sound as she walks away, the door shutting quietly behind her; leaves him in the half-dark of his father’s workshop, smelling woodchips and oil and grease.

Every memory he’s been running from for the last eighteen years.

Walking up the next morning is harder than he expects, tired from the drive from east coast to west. Tired already, just from being in this fucking _house._

It’s still early, but years of contract work has fucked up his body clock something fierce. Except, by the time he’s padding down the hall, stifling a yawn and heading down the stairs… he finds a messy-haired head already at the kitchen island.

“Mornin’,” he says, as Rey glances up at him, doesn’t miss the quick dart of her eyes, either, but it hasn’t been hard to miss, she’s like a little fawn, all wide-eyed, skinny limbs, awkward in a way he doesn’t know what to do with.

He probably should have put on a shirt though.

“Morning,” she says, and bites her lip, looking away at the water bottle she’s filling up.

“You’re up early,” he starts, but as he rounds the corner he realises why, running shorts, t-shirt, bright pink sneakers. “And dedicated.”

Rey shrugs, “It’s a little cooler in the mornings.”

“You go by yourself?”

Rey glances at him. “Yeah.”

“For how long?”

“We live in a private community,” she says, like its obvious, like he should _realise. _

“Like there aren’t creeps in gated communities?” he asks, leaning a hip on the counter, crossing his arms. Her eyes dart down again, his lips twitch as a blush crawls across her cheeks; he really should be wearing more clothes, but he finds it a little funny, he can’t lie.

“No one’s going to _abduct_ me,” she huffs, rolling her eyes and shutting the tap off. She turns to face him and he’s still surprised how short she is, barely comes up to his chest, even in sneakers, even when he’s barefoot. “It’s like, the most boring place in the world.”

“No place is perfectly safe—”

“I’ll be fine—”

“Rey—”

“_Kylo._” She glares up at him.

“I can’t believe Leia or Bail hasn’t said shit,” he grunts, glancing at the slowly brightening sky.

“Why would grandpa care?” her face scrunches like she honestly doesn’t have any idea why anyone would care about it. Like she isn’t a bright little target in neon pink shoes and a cute little—

He steps away, shaking his head. “Just… you should be careful, a lotta creeps out there.”

She rolls her eyes. “Now you sound like grandpa”

Well, he’s not _wrong_, Kylo thinks, but Rey’s stepping away, glancing back at him as she’s heading to the front hall, a little frown on her face like she doesn’t know what to think about him, yet.

_Makes two of us, _he thinks_._

He stands there, hearing the front door shut, telling himself to let it go because obviously it must be safe but—

But—

But he’s back in his room, tugging on a shirt and out the front door a minute later, shoving his feet into his boots and slipping into his truck. Giving her another minute head start as he pulls out a cigarette, turns on his truck and pulls out of the drive.

Her ponytail swings, rhythmic, in stride with every stride she takes forward. The sun rises every minute more and by the time he’s been slowly crawling behind her for twenty minutes, it’s nearly fully bright out.

There’re only a few houses with lights on, a lot of gated communities, a few security guards she waves to, who frown at him as he passes and he thinks, _shit—_

Because now he looks like the creep, he’s sure, un-showered, sleep-rumpled in a day old shirt and smoking, idling behind a sixteen-year-old in a truck that’s worth an tenth of every other vehicle on the street.

He gives one a little two-fingered wave and slows down enough to introduce himself. Apologizing and hoping the guy believes him, maybe even remembers him when he introduces himself_._

The guy laughs, nodding, saying she’s a normal sight, that the street is pretty quiet, that he sees her most mornings and they all keep an eye for her on her route.

It helps a little, he isn’t sure why he cares, he doubts Leia or Bail would let this fly if she was at all concerned. Despite all the ways he supported and encouraged Leia over the years, Bail could be a fucking hypocrite about what girls couldn’t do and guys could.

_Except now you are too,_ a voice in his minds says—

But he doesn’t get to examine it, because they’re at the end of the street and Rey’s stopping, stretching out and then turning—

Right as he’s lingering twenty feet behind her, idling in a big black truck.

She blinks, her mouth opening before it snaps shut and she glares, stalking up to his window as she tugs earbuds out of her ears, her mouth a little moue of anger that makes her looks even more like some little fawn, looking up at him through the truck window.

He leans back in the seat, inhaling on the cigarette, watching her.

“What the fuck are you _doing?_”

“Language,” he says, blowing out the smoke away from her.

She huffs, breathless, pink-cheeked and he feels _right_ about following her, but guilty about it, too.

“I told you—”

He shrugs.

She glares again, pulling in a steadying breath before turning on her heel and heading off down the path, stuffing her earbuds back into her ears to fall back into her run.

He gives her a minute, then crawls up the street behind her, idling again until she stops again, stalking back to him.

“I can’t— you need to go, I’m _fine._”

“I won’t follow you next time, alright. Now finish your run… or get in and I’ll take you to breakfast.”

She’s still pinked-up, but it’s an flustered, angry sort of red; he catches her hesitation, the curiosity lingering in the softening line between her brows when he offers breakfast.

She stares up at him, he looks down at her, tossing his cigarette out the window over her head. “C’mon, get in.”

It’s a twenty-minute drive along the coast, a little pop-up shack near the beach; there are already people in the ocean, wandering along the water edge as he pulls into the lot.

Rey hasn’t said anything since she climbed in, flicking through radio stations, tucking her hands beneath her thighs, loose strands of her hair whipping around her face.

He’d kept the window cranked, suddenly annoyed by his own smoking, the smell lingering in the truck, probably sticking to her hair now.

She didn’t seem to mind, but he saw her eyeing the pack in the console enough that he didn’t light another one even though the silence was driving him a bit crazy, kept him torn between wanting a smoke and wanting to say sorry.

Which is stupid, he thinks, he doesn’t need to apologise for shit.

Gravel and sand crunch under the tires and he’s pulling into the line-less parking area and half watching Rey look around, glancing back at him as if to ask, _is this it?_

“It’s good,” he says, defensively, even though he isn’t sure why, thinking about the fact that she’s probably used to cafés, to white-tablecloths, to whatever places the Organa’s take them to.

But she’s slipping out of his truck with a little jump that makes his lips twitch and when he rounds the truck she’s still waiting at the door, glancing up at him, when he steps up to her, giving her a little nudge.

“You’ll like it, come on.”

There are benches set up in front, he points to one, but Rey sticks to his side, looking up at the painted on menu on the side of the shack.

“Anything you don’t like?”

“Fish,” she says absently, still reading.

“What can I get for you two?” the guy in the window says, leaning out of it little, tattooed arms resting on the sill.

Kylo glances down at her, but she flicks her eyes up to him, shrugging. “Whatever’s good.”

“Two breakfast burritos, a coffee and an orange juice.”

Rey shifts at his side. “I’m not six.”

“I know,” he frowns, as the guy rings in the orders and Kylo fishes out some bills, not caring about change and herding Rey towards an empty bench. “And?”

“Orange juice, really?”

He laughs, once, because _that’s_ what bothered her?

“It’s freshly squeezed, it’s good. Don’t like it, I’ll let you have my coffee instead.”

When their orders come up, Kylo leads them over to one of the picnic tables, setting their wraps down between them and nudging the orange juice towards her.

“Try it.”

Rey scrunches her face a little, like she’s doubting he actually understands how old she is, like somehow orange juice is just for kids.

But she sticks the straw in her mouth, and he watches the orange juice travel up the straw and when she swallows, she takes another long pull and her eyes sink down, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

“See,” he says, pointing a finger at her. “I told you.”

She rolls her eyes, but a little smile breaks out, smacking his hand away from her as huffs out, “_Shut up_.”

Kylo laughs, unwrapping the burritos and offering her one; around the first bite, Rey shifts on the bench, tucking her knees beneath her to sit higher, it’s cute, he thinks, smiling around another bite, watching her as she settles, mouth opening for another too-large bite.

“Don’ need t’follow me,” she says with a full cheek.

Kylo shrugs, chewing and swallowing. “Yeah, realised that after I caught those guards giving me looks like I was the creep out to kidnap the girl running her morning route.”

Rey looks up at him, blinks and then _laughs— _it’s wide and bright and filled with fucking dimples in her pink-tinted cheeks. "Serves you right!"

He watches her, the way her eyes close and her nose scrunches, all sun-kissed freckles and deepening dimples… feels his own smile tugging wider across his face, something bright sitting in stomach, a low laugh that trips out of him, low and loose when she blinks at him, her eyes bright, burnt-gold in the California sun.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short-ish chapter, but I'm hoping to have another one up in a few days if everyone is still down for this :)  
Let me know what you think, I know it's a bit slow but I really enjoy a bit of a slow build, especially when dealing with these sort of dynamics.

* * *

Two

* * *

Sinatra sings softly from the patio speakers, it falls into a hum like the heat on his skin, the hum of cicadas and the ocean, a salty breeze that doesn’t do much to cut through the thick heat still lingering, even as the sun sinks behind the horizon.

He watches Leia at the big, wood table on the patio, frowning at the cloth napkins with disapproval clear on her face, undoing the complicated folds and redoing it; can practically hear her voice in his head. _Just like this, Ben, watch me._

He takes another drag, pulling it deep to hold it in his lungs, even while part of his mind knows he needs to quit… he exhales, leaning against one of the palm trees just near the edge of the cliffside-end to the yard.

In all the years since he left, he’s never gotten over that salt-heavy smell in too-warm air right as night falls. Feels thicker, somehow, like all the day’s heat sinks lower and lower, fills you up in a different way than the burn of the daytime. Surrounds you and lulls you, makes you think about things a little differently, feel things a little differently, as the first brush of cooler night air teases at your skin.

He kind of fucking hates it.

This whole fucking place is like one bad fucking dream; sits at the base of his skull and scratches at him like drying sand sticking to his skin—

But it’s just sweat, he knows, drags his hand over his nape, his cigarette dangling from his lips, chasing the dampness on his neck and then pushing his hand through his hair, turning his head back to the house just in time to see the littlest Solo hanging out a bedroom window, looking down at the party being set up below her.

Her hair’s loose, and he watches it tumble, a little wave to it, thick and brown, almost black in the darkening sky, just out of reach of the candles and lights set up on the patio below her. A summer dress, a glint of a gold thing hanging from her neck as she leans out, swinging as it falls out the front of her dress—

And then her head turns, jerks back into the room behind her, her bedroom, he guesses, and she’s disappearing into the house like someone is calling her.

He still doesn’t know what to make of her, hasn’t seen her since the morning; in his truck, the orange juice straw still hooked in the corner of her mouth as she drank absently, chewed the straw like she wasn’t really aware she was even doing it, her runners propped up on his dash as she leant sideways, fiddling with his radio dials, flipping through stations, her hair blowing loose from the ponytail…

It’s funny, he thinks, how much she could pass for a Solo. Almost. If it wasn’t for the scrawny limbs and the height of her.

But he can’t help but wonder if Leia’s being honest, if there’s really no Han in the girl at all. Something about her…

There’s _something_.

He pushes the thoughts away, annoyed that he’s thinking about her at all. Annoyed that he has to _wonder_ if she’s adopted. If she’s—

He scowls, pushing out a long breath as he realises he’s still thinking about the girl. Turns back to the ocean and finishes his cigarette, tossing it over the yard edge and watching it fall down into the white-capped waves hitting the cliffside.

It doesn’t matter, none of it does.

He doesn’t even know why he’s here.

“When’s Jace getting here?” Rey asks as Jaina tugs a brush through her hair with a scowl, her own hair still in rollers but her makeup is flawless.

“Dunno, he didn’t answer when I texted him. Think Mom said he was with Grandpa, so… guess he’s coming with him.”

Rey winces as the brush snags on a tangle, “_Ow,_ Jaina.”

Jaina rolls her eyes, huffing. “Maybe if you brushed your hair more, or like _ever._”

“I do!”

“Obviously not,” she pulls a face, reaching for the curling iron. “Just sit still, I’ll just do a few waves, alright? Beachy.”

“We live at the beach, beach hair doesn’t look anything like this, you know.”

“Rey,” Jaina sighs, but her lips tug up in the corners. “Shut up.”

Rey lets Jaina curl her hair, running her fingers through it, focused on her task the same way she focuses on her own make up: like she’s being quizzed on it, graded on every curl or lash or streak of colour.

“What was Kylo like, before?” she asks, curling the edge of her shirt around her fingers the way Jaina wraps each dark strand of Rey’s hair around the iron.

“Ben?” Jaina asks without looking up. “I dunno, I mean, I was like, nine, I think, the last time I saw him. He was cool though, like, I always thought he was so much older and cooler than like, anyone I knew. Used to piss off Mom and Dad like, a lot,_ a lot. _But he was always like…” she pauses, dropping a curl and letting it fall over Rey’s shoulder. “… he played with us, used to throw us in the pool like, crazy far. Used to read us bedtime stories if Mom and Dad were at one of Grandpa’s events? Did all the voices, too.”

Jaina goes quiet, still, just for a second too long—

But then she’s picking up another section of Rey’s hair, her shoulder jerking. “I dunno, Rey. Ben is so much older now… but I’m glad he’s home, anyway. I hope Jace…”

“What about Jace?”

Jaina shakes her head. “Nothing. Doesn’t matter. How about that yellow cotton dress? The one I wore to that wedding? I think it’s too small for me now, want to wear it?”

Rey nods, watching Jaina in the mirror. “Sure.”

Fairy lights wind along the trellis lining the patio and garden, the table, white-clothed and fit for a magazine spread as the glassware and cutlery glittered in the late dusk.

Rey stands beside Leia and Jaina, her kitten heels pinching her feet, darting glances at the edge of the property where she caught a shadow moving, a little flair of red flickering light in the dark, the very faint scent of cigarettes.

She wonders if Leia told him he wasn’t allowed to smoke in the house.

She wouldn’t be surprised, she hated it when Han smoked cigars.

She lifts and pushes her foot back, rolling her ankle, balancing a little as she takes her weight off of her foot, wishing she could just go barefoot. They’re at home, anyway, she doesn’t really understand the whole dressing up thing.

But then Bail and Jacen are there, stepping out into the backyard with Breha just behind them, and she gets swept up in the greeting hellos and hugs and ‘don’t you look _lovely’_s from the Organas and by the time they’ve gone through them, there’s a few more Organa’s pouring in behind them and it starts all over again until there’s a lull—

Just a flicker of a moment where Leia goes a little tense beside her and Rey glances out to the edge of the property and finds it empty. Only to find the shadow less of a shadow and more of man; dressed in a plain white button-down, Kylo looks almost like an entirely different person. His hair pushed back over his forehead—

And it hits her then, somehow, how he looks more like Han than she realised; it tugs something in her chest and for a second, she thinks Leia feels it too, because there’s a hesitation, just at Rey’s side, like they’re caught in a moment, a heavy, too-hard-to-breathe moment where time sort of folds over itself and it feels like you’ve done all of this before and you know, really, that the moment can’t last.

And it doesn’t.

Jacen’s standing in front of Kylo but he’s shaking his head and turning away even as Bail says something to his back, but Jacen keeps going and Rey feels Leia move—

And the moment breaks, leaving Jaina and Rey standing there beneath the fairy lights and in the swelling tide of chatter, watching their family and looking at each other.

Jaina frowns, the line between her brows full of irritation and something… _disappointed_, Rey thinks. And as much as Rey feels the questions rising up inside of her as Leia pulls Jace a few steps outside of the patio trellis, she decides to keep her mouth shut.

But she looks back to Kylo, whose looking over Bail’s shoulder at where Leia is talking to Jacen. When his eyes suddenly dart to hers, Rey looks away, feeling her cheeks burn as she catches the turn of Jaina’s head, looking at her too.

“Come on,” she says, grabbing Rey’s arm. “Let’s grab the wine and get this thing over with.”

The seats fill around the table and water, wine, liquor sloshes into glasses as the ice clinks against the crystal sides.

Kylo sits at the head of the table, in Han’s seat.

Jacen won’t even look at him.

Leia sits to Kylo’s right, in the seat that’s always been hers; Rey can’t think of a memory where Leia didn’t sit exactly where she is, right next to Han. (She’s seen photos, too, she knows whose seat she’s in. A boy with dark hair, Jaina and Jacen nothing more than toddlers.)

And Rey, from her place at Kylo’s left, isn’t entirely sure where to look. It’s too quiet. She thinks even the ice cubes have stopped melting. The air stilted, stagnant and murky; feels like those first days she can only barely remember, coming into this house, her fingers white-knuckled around Han’s and afraid to breathe too loudly, afraid to say the wrong thing.

Afraid Han would let go.

“So I have some good news,” Bail starts, and Rey is thankful for him being there; he’s a politician for a reason, she thinks, always knows how to fill a silence, how to ease a conversation from one topic to another.

As Bail launches into an update on a well-known family that he’s been trying to sway into doing business with, a fundraiser, some gala, another family event that they’ll all be dragged to, he looks down the table to Kylo.

“You should come as well, Ben. It would be a great showing, to have all of the family together again.”

And just as Rey’s thinking, _not all of us. Not all of us because—_

Jacen snorts. “Nah, Grandpa,” he says, sitting near Bail’s side, his eyes on Kylo. “That’s not his name, is it? Not anymore.”

The table goes quiet.

Kylo looks at him, his eyes dark, a hint of amber in the glow of the candles and lights on the table reflecting back in his eyes.

“Doesn’t even go by Solo, now, huh?”

Even in his button-up, white collared shirt, Rey thinks he looks out of place, slouched in his chair, an elbow on the armrest, looks too large for the table, more Solo than Organa: too broad, too at ease in the tense, straight-backed, two-forks-and-proper-etiquette sort of dinner these things usually are.

She sees Han in his angles, the slope of his shoulders, the way he never quite managed to sand down his own rough edges to meld into the shinier, smoother, proper parts of the Organa family.

Rey never minded, she always thought the rougher bits felt more real. (Like the pre-varnished pieces in Han’s workshop. When they still smelled like wood, when you could still see Han’s work, each carved line, each sawed edge.)

Kylo’s eyes are dark, his voice… nearly empty of anything. “Something you want to say, Jace?”

“Not even really family, anymore, are you? Should be a time limit, don’t you think? Can’t be bothered to show his face for ten years—"

“Jacen,” Leia warns.

“What, Mom, he didn’t even come to the fucking funer—”

“That’s _enough_,” Bail interrupts, and Jacen’s jaw snaps shut, teeth grinding as he looks down at his plate. “We’re here to have a nice dinner, not drag out the past. Can we have a nice meal, Jace?”

Jacen’s jaw tightens.

“Can we?” Bail asks again, waiting.

Jacen nods, once, not looking up.

Beside her, Kylo says nothing, but his next mouthful of wine nearly drains his glass.

“Like I was saying, it should be in a few weeks, hopefully less, I’d like to hold it at the Alderaan, what do you think, Leia?”

The dinner conversation stays safe for the rest of the meal, stays as proper and polite and as if they were already at the Alderaan and being watched over all the people the Organas do business with. Those events where there are photographers and reporters, camera flashes and questions or tight-lipped smiles from people they only vaguely recognise; other families, partners, associates Rey’s pretty sure she should remember, but never can.

Desert comes and the summer heat still lingering melts it against the edges of their bowls, Rey watches Jaina push hers around, watches Kylo not even touch his, scoops her own into her mouth and lets the vanilla cream melt over her tongue.

Jaina’s got her phone in her lap, texting one-handed, Rey can only make out pieces of the conversation, something about a party… a boy, she guesses, it almost always is.

When the relatives start slipping out and it’s just Bail and Breha and the Solos left at the table, the wine bottles are emptied of their last drops, the candles burning down, flickering in the cooler, late evening breeze coming off the ocean, struggling to stay lit.

“How have you been, Ben?” Bail asks from the other end of the table, his wine dark red, glinting in the light as he takes another mouthful. “Leia was telling me you got here yesterday.”

“It’s Kylo,” Kylo says, his voice rough-edged, staring Bail down, that same glint in his eye that he’d had looking at Jace; a challenge, a threat, something stuck right between the two, like he was daring them to find out which one it was.

He looks different, she thinks, more that guy on their driveway, smoking and leaning against a truck than the man who made them nachos, watched a movie…took her to breakfast this morning.

“Of course, Kylo.” Bail smiles, glancing at Leia before giving a tight-lipped smile that reminds Rey of the all the press-pieces he does. Shaking hands and spilling sound bites, article pieces for the journalists and reporters around him. “Last we heard you were in New York, no?”

“Was.” He shrugs. “Spent the last few months travelling.”

There’s no real attempt from anyone to pretend they aren’t interested in knowing where he’s been for the last ten years; even Jaina’s fingers have stilled, her head turned towards her brother.

“Oh?” Leia says, something on her face… eagerness_, _Rey thinks, _hope?_ “Were you, Be— Where were you travelling?”

“Along the coast, mostly, then cut across until I got to California.”

“Not a short trip,” Bail says, lifting a brow. “Must have taken a while.”

Kylo says nothing, giving a short nod.

“Have you seen Luke lately?” Leia asks, and Rey can’t help but wonder why she doesn’t know. But then… Luke wasn’t here for the funeral either, she thinks, came a day after, spent the day with Leia in a too quiet house, all of them stuck silent, too afraid speaking might make everything more real.

More real than it already was, anyway. (Rey spent the day staring at the workshop, all day, all night, waiting for the light inside to come on.)

Kylo shakes his head, his fingers rubbing over his mouth, eyes darting to the side, Rey wonders if he wants a cigarette or if he’s lying.

“Contract work.”

Bail nods, swirling his wine. “And are you still working for—”

Leia frowns, her fingers twisting the stem of her wine glass, glancing at Bail and Breha, something in her eyes that make Bail sit back, falling silent as he swallows the last of his wine.

There’s no politician skilled enough to cover the tension that creeps over at the table, hanging in the air full of unspoken words, questions, _years,_ that slip out into the night and fade away like the salt-heavy breeze.

Rey looks between them, from Kylo to Leia to the Organas. She can see Jaina looking, even Jace, still too quiet at the other end of the table, is looking from Leia to Bail to Kylo, curiosity winning out over anger.

It’s Breha who saves the moment. “No one special waiting for you back in New York, Kylo?”

Kylo shakes his head, his lips quirking even as Rey feels something tug in her chest because _girlfriend, that’s what she’s asking, isn’t she?_ “No, Grandma, sorry, nothing like that.”

“So you’re staying, then?” Jaina asks, blinking at her brother, glancing around the table like she’s trying to piece things together just like Rey is. “For good?”

Kylo hesitates. “Not sure yet.”

“This is your home, Ben,” Leia says, almost too harshly, before pushing up from the table. “It always has been. No matter what you— No matter what, you know that.”

Like Leia standing signals the end of the dinner, the rest of the table stands, except for Kylo, who rubs a hand over his jaw, looking off into the night towards the ocean.

As Rey stands, gathering her plate, Kylo rubs a hand along his thigh, just out of sight beneath the table, his fingers stretching wide, a tremor in the tips just before it relaxes and he’s standing as well, watching Jace walk away, following Bail into the house.

He glances at Rey like he knows she’s watching him. His eyes still too dark, something sitting beneath them that makes her spine tighten, her belly flop.

She wonders who he worked for, what Bail was going to say, but before she can ask, he’s looking away and heading into the house.

It’s late, Rey knows, but outside of her window, sneaking in along with the crooked stream of moonlight creaking into her room, is the faintest smell of cigarettes.

She tiptoes to the window, leaning out and looking down into the backyard below her. 

There’s a flair in the shadows by the pool, a click-snick of a lighter, a plume of smoke and Rey can see the length of his legs in the turquoise glow of the lights inside the pool as he lounges on one of the deck chairs.

She bites her lip, watching him, the just barely visible shift of his arm; still in the same clothes from dinner, the little bit of movement in the shadows when he inhales, the white puff of smoke when he exhales…

She wonders if there really is a time limit for someone to not feel like family. Wonders if Jace was right, if coming here makes him feel like he doesn’t belong, no matter what Leia says about it being home.

Rey wonders what would have happened if she’d gotten here just a few years later than she did.

It’s not hard to climb out, she’s done it before, used to slip out and watch Han some nights in his workshop, turning hunks of wood into tables, pounding metals into shapes, into the little pendant she wears around her neck ever since he pressed it into her palm. (One of her first nights here, still not talking, still half-sure he was going to disappear.) He hadn’t said anything, not then, not later when she’d tugged his shirt instead of saying thank you, but she thinks he knew, somehow, what she meant anyway, had laid his hand on the top of her head, all wide and rough and warm, just for a moment, just one, and then gone back to the cabinet handles he’d be making.

She glances at the workshop now, dark and empty as it has been for the last two months, sometimes she thinks she’s still waiting for the light to come on inside. A little beacon in the dark, a lighthouse, telling her where home is.

She shoves the thoughts aside, climbing down the trellis, hopping a little at the bottom, feet making a quiet little _plat_ sound against the stones of the patio. She waits a beat, listening for any new noises, glancing over at the pool to see Kylo still lazing in the chair and smoking.

Except by the time she tiptoes over, he’s already eyeing her. His face is more clear than it was before, his head tilted back, just a little, eyes dark and watching her.

“Nice pyjamas,” he says roughly, _smoke-filled,_ she thinks, like it’s still sitting in his lungs and weight of it gets wrapped around his words.

Rey looks down, the bowtie wearing bunnies look up at her in the pink of her pyjama set. She can feel the flush burning up in her cheeks but shrugs it off and bites her cheek, pretending she doesn’t care. She moves closer, dropping down into the lounge chair next to his and draws her legs up and hugging her knees.

“What are you doing out here?” she asks, ignoring the feeling rolling in her stomach as she looks at him.

“Nothing,” he says with his skin, eyes, clothes tinted blue from the shifting lights beneath the water of the pool.

“It’s late,” she presses, not sure why she cares, not sure why she’s even here, really. Looking at his face, the shadows that make him look different, darker, bigger, maybe, maybe… something else.

“Why is Jace so mad at you?” she asks, feeling suddenly a little nervous, watching him smoke, his eyes black, his face unreadable… just a man that she doesn’t know at all. Not really.

_You’re stupid,_ Jaina says in her head, _what did you expect to happen?_

“You’d have to ask him.”

There’s nothing to his tone, just an exhale of smoke. Rey chews her cheek, her toes curling on the smooth wood of the chair’s edge as he looks at her; his eyes are so dark, she thinks, and looks away; watching his fingers, the long length of them holding the cigarette.

She looks back at his face, ignoring the tumble inside her belly. “I’m asking you.”

“Why’re you up?”

She shrugs, dropping her chin onto her knees. “Couldn’t sleep… Why is Jace mad at you?”

His lip quirks, just barely visible as he looks away and out over the pool; Rey watches him stub the cigarette out into a little tray she remembers seeing in Han’s workshop.

It’s in the shape of a car, a Falcon Millennium, she thinks, remembers Han just shrugging, when she’d asked about it, something about how he was working on one years ago.

_Long story, kiddo,_ he’d said. _Feels like it’s a long time ago now, too._

Kylo sighs, rubs his palm down his thigh, stretching his fingers out before relaxing them, his head turning towards her again. “I’m going for a drive. You should go back to bed, Rey. It’s late.”

Rey frowns, watching him stand, his shirt unbuttoned a few more buttons than it was at dinner, his hair more rumpled; he’s tall and loose-limbed in a that reminds her of Han again, even though she thinks Kylo’s bigger, thicker—

She looks away, looking at her toes. “I can’t sleep.”

He exhales, long and heavy. “Why not?” he asks, standing in front of her, his hands tucked into his pockets, his feet bare.

Rey huffs, flicking her eyes up to his. “I asked you first.”

Kylo looks down at her, his eyes narrowing, his voice low and almost rough when he speaks. “You’re kinda annoying, huh?”

“And you’re kinda a dick,” Rey blurts, glaring when Kylo just lifts a brow like, _and?_

She looks away first, looking at her toes in the flickering pool light, curling around the edge of the chair, sees Kylo moving, just in her peripherals, watching him stuff his feet into his shoes, watching him walk away…

“Come if you want,” he says, even as he’s walking away, heading towards the gate to the front yard.

She’s pushing up and stumbling after him before she can think about it. Jaina in her head saying, _seriously, Rey, what are you doing?_

Kylo doesn’t look back until he’s slipping the key into into his truck door. He looks down at her just as Rey’s ducking under his arm, his hand on the truck door; she clambers into the vehicle, over the driver’s seat and into the passengers.

It’s weird sitting in the seat in her pyjamas and bare feet, feels Kylo’s eyes on her for a heartbeat of a moment where he doesn’t move— until he does and he’s muttering as he slips into his seat. “I would’ve opened the other door.”

Rey shrugs, crossing her legs on the seat and pulling the belt over her, the click loud in the dark.

He isn’t looking at her, taps two of his fingers on the steering wheel before he’s tugging a hand through his hair and hooking his arm over the back of her seat, rolling the car down the drive almost entirely silent until they’re closing in on the gates and he starts the engine.

It does something to her stomach, watching the muscles of his arm in the dark, the engine rumbling to life, his profile, the little glance her way when they’re on the road, the quiet, quiet as the night realisation that they’re alone.

Which shouldn’t matter, she thinks, they were alone that morning. The day before, in almost the same spot in the backyard.

But it is different…something about the moonlight, the roll of the pavement beneath the truck, Kylo’s body easing into something relaxed as he drives, one hand on the wheel, heading towards the coast.

It gets darker as he drives, the truck rolling smoothly down towards the highway along the coastline, just the little glowing-green light of the dashboard clock, the low hum of the music from the radio and the passing cars and distant lights coming in gentle, quiet rushes. Like waves, almost.

Rey watches the world slip by until it gets too dark on her side to see much, pulling her feet up to prop them on the dash, stretching them out, catching Kylo’s glance at her feet, at her, a moment, a heartbeat, a tick of the glowing-green clock.

1:34

“Why is Jace mad at you?”

His chest rises, falls, he looks back out the windshield, a passing car lights up his face.

Rey waits.

The clock ticks over.

1:35

“I’m a lot older than them, you know. And you, too.”

Rey tilts her head against the seatback, watching him drive, his hand tightening on the wheel, a slow crawl of tensing muscles up his arm before they relax and he continues.

“He looked up to me, you know? Big brother and all that shit. I was gone a lot before I left for good, and then I did… and I never came back.”

_Should be a time limit, _Jace had said.

Rey hesitates. “But Jaina’s not… she doesn’t seem like she’s mad at you. Not like Jace.”

There’s another moment of quiet before Kylo answers. “No, she’s not.”

Rey waits, feeling the roll of the truck beneath her temple on the seat, watching his profile.

“It’s complicated. Jace… I said some shit I shouldn’t have. When I didn’t come back… I think he realised it was true.”

“What things,” Rey asks because she can’t not. Can’t stop thinking about Jace at the table, angry and glaring, the dare in Kylo’s eyes, the weight of whatever dark thing was behind the words _got something you want to say, Jace?_

Almost like he knew Jace had something to say but wouldn’t— _couldn’t._

“Who knows, really,” he mutters, ignoring Rey’s question. “Maybe he doesn’t even remember it, maybe he’s just a fuckin’ messed up asshole like I was.”

“What’d you say?” she asks again, frowning, can’t even imagine what it could be, what could make Jacen so angry at his own brother… even now, ten years later.

But Kylo’s cranking down his window, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a cigarette. Rey watches him light up, watches the first crisp-crinkle of the burning tip of his cigarette as it sits in his mouth. Watches him inhale, hold it in, exhale out the window, the smoking whipping away in the wind.

“You got a problem,” Rey huffs, and she means the smoking, she does, but when Kylo grunts, his voice smoke-rough, she realises he might take it to mean something else entirely.

“More than one, sweetheart.”

_The sweetheart_ falls roughly from his mouth, shifting the cigarette stuck between his lips until he pulls it out of his mouth and glances at her, exhaling and driving one-handed, long enough that Rey feels a prickle of something along her spine that isn’t just from the _sweetheart_, isn’t just from his eyes on her and not the road. Something else.

The glowing-green clock ticks over.

1:40

Kylo looks away and Rey looks back out her own window, rolling hers down as well, the nicotine smell fading into the ocean, warm air, and city smells. Watches the city and houses on the other side of the road, feeling distant and disconnected all while _sweetheart _rolls around in her skull like it’s caught in the wind pushing in from her window, whipping her hair, the air between them, the too quiet, too warm space in the truck.

She isn’t sure what to say to fill the silence.

Isn’t really sure she wants to.

Kylo drives in silence, Rey lets him.

It’s nearly three by the time Kylo’s easing the truck back into the driveway.

Rey’s eyes feel heavy, stumbling a little as she climbs out of the truck; a noise behind her that’s nearly a laugh, the quiet clunk of his truck door, the weird weight of his body following hers into the house. His shadow chasing hers and swallowing it in the corner of her eye.

She stops at the stairs, waiting, even though she tells herself to go, doesn’t know why she _isn’t_—

But stops and watches Kylo toes off his shoes, her toes curling against the cool hardwood stair as he steps up to the bottom step, still so much taller than her.

“It’s late,” he mumbles, his voice nearly too quiet, her ears strained to hear him, feels his breath, the warmth of him more than anything else. His eyes flick down between them, and she shivers when she feels his fingers, just the barest, barest brush of touch, more like a breath, a whisper, the pad of his finger pulling up the chain of her necklace.

The little sun slides in a quiet little slip of a noise along the chain as he lifts it a little higher to look at it; it hangs between them, swaying slightly, just tinted with the barest hint of gold in the dark of the house.

“Ray…” he says, like he understands what was pressed into the metal the way she does now; didn’t at first, not the first time she held it, not when Han bought her the chain, but later, so much later it made her cry harder, watching Han’s casket sink into the ground, the sun burning bright and beating down like some sort of offence, taunt, fucking _joke_ she didn’t want to understand, the little, metal sun’s pointy sides sharp and hot and cutting into her palm.

Kylo blinks and drops it, stepping back and looking up the stairs. “You should go to bed.”

Rey’s toes curl on the hardwood, she swallows, itches, feels like she’s seconds from flying apart at every edge. “Aren’t you?”

He nods, not looking at her again, his eyes sinking to the pendant, his chest stops—

Rey feels her nipples, hard and peaking beneath the thin of her tank top.

Kylo steps away, looking down at nothing as he drags a hand through his hair. “Go to bed, Rey.”

Rey goes.

In her room, Rey leans against her door, ears straining to hear him in the hallway, something curling in her stomach, barely daring to breathe… the quiet click of his door, a few minutes later, just down the hallway.

When she climbs into her bed, a few minutes later, she’s breathing too hard and she has to bury herself beneath the blankets, breathing in cotton and the faint traces of cigarette smoke still clinging to her hair.

She wraps herself up and tries to smother out that wriggling thing in her limbs that makes her want to— to—

She squeezes her eyes shut and breathes out.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think/if you'd like to see more! x


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